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I still feel sketchy when analyzing the melody or thematic material. Otherwise, my formal and harmonic analysis is fine. I may not analyze any more sonatas or only sonatas I really like since it may take a year to analyze them all and I would really like to compose my own music thank you very much. Improving my own skills is the reason I do such tedious work in the first place. Beethoven’s 3rd sonata is a brilliant finish to a unique triplet of works, each showing very different moods. The Fm sonata was tragic and brooding, the D sonata was lyrical, the C sonata is vivid and dazzling; it’s virtuoso score hints at piano concerto material.

As usual, a complete formal and harmonic analysis of the piano sonata is in the video above, an overview of the sonata’s overall form below.

0:00 The 1st movement, in sonata form, has the most distinct piano concerto feel to it, since the transitioning passages do look very much like a piano accompaniment to an orchestra. The main subject on the other hand is not that energetic by itself but does have enormous potential energy, which Beethoven exploits by setting it off like dynamite. Unlike with the earlier sonatas, Beethoven’s doesn’t focus so much on the main subject; most of the music in this movement sounds like stock set of riffs Beethoven used to improvise, which he did a lot early in his career.

9:30 The 2nd movement is far off in the mediant key of E, a relation we see for the first time. The movement itself is made of two very different characters; the first one is a rather complex lyrical melody Beethoven goes out of his way to leave unresolved, the second character devotes the left hand for a singing baseline with dotted rhythms lifted from the first character while the right hand plays arpeggios similar to those of a Baroque prelude.

16:40 The 3rd movement has cheeky scherzo that uses F# and starts the downbeat at A, which confuses the key of C major. The scherzo consists of a descending subject that changes registers (and hands) as it keeps going down the keyboard. Meanwhile, other voices join it in counterpoint, often based on the playful turn at the very beginning. The minor trio is more conventional; the right hand plays triplet arpeggios while the left hand plays a simple base. The coda is built on the Bdim-C cadence (vii/I) as opposed to the more usual G7-C cadence (V7/I). All this is subtle humor on Beethoven’s part but sadly most of the jokes are lost to us as we don’t understand the language of sonata form like Beethoven and friends did. It’s hard to get parodies and jokes when you don’t speak the language fluently.

19:57 The 4th movement is an extensive rondo as Beethoven returns to the main subject over and over again, changing it in many different ways, while departing from it afterward in a new direction almost each time. What you get is a pretty complicated rondo, so complicated you could even see sonata form elements in it, complete with two expositions, a long development section, two recapitulations, and a coda. Beethoven, as I said before, wanted to give the finale of a piece the most weight, and tried different ideas throughout his career. He often settled this problem in his early days by expanding the rondo by making it more like a sonata.

This sonata gave me a real headache. Anyway, this is the second of three Beethoven piano sonatas in Op. 2. This work is light, lyrical, and witty, as opposed to the dark and tragic Fm sonata. But don’t be fooled! The A sonata is more complex and difficult as Beethoven plays with mediant (III) and submediant (VI) keys a lot, frequently leaping to them. He also likes to leap to the supertonic (ii) and flattened subtonic (VIIb), which are both a M2nd away.

A complete formal and harmonic analysis of the piano sonata is in the video above, an outline of the overall form below.

00:00 – The first movement plays a lot with downward triads and running up and down the scale, usually with a lot of counterpoint. Beethoven is fond of leaping by the III or VI in the subordinate subject, as well delaying the harmony from changing alongside the melody, which makes the keys more ambiguous. Beethoven leaps down the VI especially in the development and the subordinate subject in the recapitulation.

11:11 – The second movement suggests definite instruments; muted trombones and string bases in the main subject. Beethoven bases the whole melody of the main subject on peaking it at B4 and F#5, then taking it down. This is the basic structure to many classical melodies but Beethoven takes it to an extreme. The developments in Bm and D are in typical keys. The first development is based on the descending scale, a contrast to the main theme.

17:32 – The scherzo of the third movement is based on a rising arpeggio while the trio is based on a descending scale, like so much other material in this sonata in all the Op. 2 sonatas. Beethoven takes the development of the scherzo all the way to G#m (vii), an extreme place to go relative to A. The development of the trio is in C, a far less distant key relative to A.

22:18 – The last movement is very long and substantial for a rondo, showing that Beethoven is unhappy with the overall structure of sonatas. The minuet and rondo are usually short and light in content, which is lopsided considering how large and important the sonata form in the first movement is. The early Beethoven’s attempts to solve this problem involve making the last movement either sonata form or lengthy rondos, such as this movement. Save the best for last as the saying goes.

The main subject is an operatic dip from E6 all the way down to G4 or F#4, and is the most striking subject of the entire sonata. This movement may be the most gentle and lyrical of the entire sonata but it is the most complex and difficult as Beethoven leaps to the III and VI keys more than in any other movement. The “development” sections explore the dotted motif of the main subject while the “transition” turns the 16th note ascension of the main subject in all sorts of directions; descending down the scale, arpeggios, turns etc.

Beethoven’s first published piano sonata is far longer and more complex than his Kurfursten sonatas, and we see the mature Beethoven for the first time. His basic musical tastes, harmonies, and means of developing material stay firmly in place despite him transforming through three different styles. We also see Haydn’s influence in using a few notes (like the Mannheim rocket) as a base to build the entire movement. Beethoven composed this sonata when he was only 25.

A complete formal and harmonic analysis of the piano sonata is in the video above, a general outline of the form is below.

00:00 – The 1st movement uses the Mannheim rocket for its main subject and its inversion for the first subordinate subject. He uses the melody to create a hard dissonance (m2nd) against the harmony of the base. He blurs harmonies a lot with his “triplets” in the second subordinate subject.

5:38 – The 2nd movement is made from recycled material from an unpublished piano trio, but now the material is more complex and is developed more. It features complex melodies with a strong emphasis on rising and falling and a sighing motif. Beethoven is also fond of mixing a chord in the base with a note in the treble that implies the chords’ subdominant. Like in the 1st movement, he cadences with an 11 chord.

10:28 – The 3rd movement has has a murky feeling. The minuet is in Fm, yes, but it doesn’t sound like such a clear, tragic minor piece, because Beethoven uses Bbm (ii) a lot along with Fm. His orchestration as it were is frequently is in 4 parts, suggesting a string quartet. The trio is more straightforward, using a chromatic C-Bh-Bb descent in its latter parts.

13:13 – The 4th movement is volcanic, with less restraint than the other movements, as if Beethoven saving the pent up energy for the last movement. It’s main subject makes great use of 1st-7th-1st notes, a simple cadence, with V9 and viihalfdim chords. The transition is very dense, with many different harmonies squeezed into one measure, like Beethoven is trying his hardest not to play I-V. The subordinate subject is in a minor key (Cm, Fm) but frequently stays in the mediant (III) (Eb, Ab). The long downward scales give a dramatic, tragic feeling to the music, a falling down to ruin.

Beethoven, when making his second attempt to compose a piano sonata, wrote a more difficult and serious piece of music than he did when writing his first sonata. It is in the dark key of Fm, maybe the darkest key in classical music, has more complex harmonies, and has a denser harmonic structure. In this piece, Beethoven’s emotions are darker and more passionate in the minor first and second movement yet more pensive in the second movement in the middle. The second movement has a sublime quality we don’t hear in the earlier Eb sonata.

Yet, as I examine and play the sonatas of the mature Beethoven, I become shocked at how simply the preteen Beethoven wrote his early music in comparison. He still writes for two parts in most places, abuses the Alberti base, and uses the simple thin textures of octaves. Still, keep in mind that Beethoven was already a prodigy at twelve who could compete with most composers of the day three times his age. This sonata holds much promise for the young Beethoven, a promise he fulfilled in his later years.

All movements in this sonata are in sonata form. Click on the roadmap below to expand it. To hear the complete sonata with all annotations go to this link:

The exposition; the introduction (bars 1-9) is made of two contrasting sentences. The first sentence is a typical statement of slow introductions during that time, the first phrase goes from Fm to C, the next statement returns from C to F. He contrasts a heavy loud cord and dotted rhythm with soft legatos. The orchestration is not obvious but you can hear it; a loud tutti announcement followed by a soft string quartet. This beginning is important because we see Beethoven using music as a tool of speech and rhetoric, not just a way to string melodies together, which suggests that Beethoven will be able to build his ideas together, to create an argument or thesis if you will.

The second sentence develops the ideas of the first; he transforms the descend by 2nd into rising octaves, rising from F to Gb to A to Bb. Meanwhile he uses the Alberti base but in the base register, especially on the downbeat by striking the lowest notes on the pianoforte’s range. The bottom register sounds like a contrabassoon and base, especially on a pianoforte where the lower register is raspier. But more important, the rising line in the treble gives a slow, creeping, crawling feeling, a device Beethoven used a lot in his music to raise tension before releasing it. Beethoven also uses more inventive harmonies, like Gb (the Neopolitan major), then mutates it to Gbdim. And finally, he suspends the music on a C chord (V/Fm) with a C note as the base (the 5th or dominant note of Fm).

All this dense and detailed music at last done with, we move to the exposition proper. The main subject and transition (bars 10-17) are fused into one sentence and proceeds as thus; first the melody flies up two octaves in Fm as a Mannheim rocket, a tool Beethoven used a lot in his early career, inherited from Haydn and Mozart, and representing drama and angst. Then the melody descends in 3rds from Fm to Db to Bbm, a technique Beethoven recycled from his Eb sonata. I don’t blame him since using it takes you to a relative key so easily while using diverse harmonies.

The subordinate subject (bars 18-27) is in Ab, a typical key a composer would land on in a piece in Fm. The construction is very simple here; not one long intense passage but a contrast between a loud descend on the Ab chord and a soft rise on Eb. The closing theme (bars 28-36) feels a little forced but it is remarkable. The cello base descends down by 3rds (notes Ab, F, Db), something that fascinated Beethoven in his career.

The development (bars 37-46) is short and simple. In the first sentence, Beethoven imitates the Mannheim rocket but in Ab. The second sentence, the meat of the development, is new material not based on anything before it; alternates from chords to arpeggios and likewise alternates from Fm to Bbm. These are somewhat imaginative harmonies, as Beethoven mutates the home key and plays I-iv chords, not something too expected. And finally he suspends the piece with two chords on F.

He enters the recapitulation; the introduction here is very different from before, which is important as it shows how Beethoven adds new ideas to old material. It allows us to glimpse at how the mature Beethoven transforms the material he works with; he digs ever deeper into it, explores its potential, plays with it, changes it in all sorts of ways. He creates music that is different at the end of a peace or movement than before, making it feel like you went on a long journey and changed along the way. Of course you didn’t go anywhere. Beethoven was manipulating your mind all along, something he gets very skilled at over the years.

The introduction (bars 47-56); the first sentence changes harmonies a bit, Fm-F unlike before, which was Fm-C. It’s small but it takes the harmony down a 4th, giving a IV chord or subdominant like effect. The second sentence is very different; very loud rising arpeggios, important since this is material taken from the development section and expanded. Beethoven plays around with harmonies; he mutates the keys of Bb and Eb. He turns Bbm to Bb7 and Eb to Edim7. It doesn’t seem like much, but remember how he turned Gb to Gbdim? He’s doing it again but with more keys.

Beethoven plays recapitulation, almost exactly the same as the exposition, but with some differences in range and timbre he uses to create a darker sound to the music. The main subject (bars 57-64) is the same as before. The subordinate subject (bars 65-74), now in Fm, has the base and treble spread out by two octaves to create a more intense effect, then has phrases low in the tenor (viola) and base (cello and base) to create a darker feel. The closing statements (bars 75-83) have little change, the base only a m3rd lower than before.

MOVEMENT TWO – ANDANTE

The second movement shows the young Beethoven at his best on the piano; it has a certain sublime quality he achieves by doing three things. He uses ambiguous harmonies and rhythms, especially in the subordinate subject, he uses richer and more varied textures as opposed to octaves, and he writes for the key of Ab. Composers at Beethoven’s time thought each key had a special character best used to reflect certain moods and states of mind. The key of Ab had an eerie sound that made listeners pensive and sensitive to sublime thoughts, especially back in the day when performers used mean tuning to tune their instruments; the further a key was from C the more dissonant it sounded.

You could say classical music is based on the I and V chord (kind of how jazz is rooted in the I and IV chord), and composers use such a base to build a structure of building tension in the V chord and then resolving it in the I chord. Of course composers write in many remote keys in a work but the work, in the end, hangs on creating a I-V tension and resolving it. Beethoven turns this idea on its head during his middle and late period, like building a Eb-B tension in the “Emperor” concerto and a Bb-B tension in the “Hammerklavier” sonata, but that is many years from now. The young Beethoven suspends tension in this movement by not resolving in perfect or authentic cadences, allowing him to expand his ideas since he can avoid resolving them so soon.

I found this movement the most difficult to analyze out of all movements in these “Kurfursten” sonatas, leading to many mistakes in my annotation, which forced me to remake the YouTube video on this sonata.

The exposition; the main subject (bars 1-8), using 3rds to great effect while the base uses good counterpoint by rising by steps as the melody falls and having the melody an octave higher and with more sixteenth notes in the second phrase to heighten the emotion. The transition is made of two sentences; the first sentence (bars 8-16) expands on the main subject by having the melody, made songlike by its 3rds and 6ths, end in cadence that don’t resolve the music. Furthermore, in each cadence Beethoven uses Ab as the base to blur harmonies. It makes you wonder if Beethoven is really implying Eb7 with an Ab note thrown in or Bbm7. It would seem like an Eb7 but in the second sentence (bars 19-22) Beethoven mutates it to Bb so he can modulate to Eb with a Bb-Eb harmonies, which implies Bbm7.

The subordinate subject (bars 23-31) is the most special line in the entire sonata it starts on the wrong harmony. The first sentences starts in Fm in all places but then goes through many Bb7-Eb harmonies to imply Eb. The melody keeps climbing up the scale from the D note to the Ab note, then falls to a low F note, an imperfect cadence. The second sentence rising in dynamic and pitch up the scale to Bb, again suspending the music in Bb, the V chord. Beethoven is taking great pains to suspend tension as long as he can, something he didn’t do so well in the Eb sonata, and finally lands on Eb in the closing section (bars 35-40). He even uses three voices when closing, something a little new.

Beethoven divides the development into two pre-cores and two cores and uses it to replaces the main theme and transition in the recapitulation. The first pre-core (bars 40-44) mimics the main subject but in the harmonies of C7-Db and reverses the melodic arc from descending to rising. The core itself (bars 44-48) is in Fm, with a simple, sad, songlike melody rising and falling with a C note humming in the alto register. Beethoven purposefully makes the note C because it is the 5th note or dominant of Fm; by implying such he keeps tension and lets him play almost any melody without fear of dissonance.

The second pre-core (bars 49-54) acts as a “resting point”. Beethoven lingers in Edim7 (vii7/F), the leading tone to F, and constructs it in such a way to keep tension. He keeps most of it in Edim7, uses arpeggios to build up to a striking, loud syncopated section, and climaxes by keeping the music suspended briefly. Beethoven takes a syncopated section in the exposition as material and, while he doesn’t alter or expand it, he uses it for a different purpose. Then Beethoven resolves to the core, but lands on F, not Fm, like we expect.

The second core (bars 55-60) is pretty simple as Beethoven just plays thirty-second notes over an octave base. He concerns himself with returning to Ab. The base goes down the circle of fifths, from F, Bb, Eb, and Ab. The harmony implied by the thrity-second notes is not so simple as that Eb base is really part of a Gdim harmony. In the end, Beethoven makes an Eb-Ab-Eb cadence, ending with the base on the Eb, the dominant. Now on Eb, Beethoven plays the retransition (bars 61-64) like he played the transition before, serving the same function, just a 4th lower in harmonies. The subordinate subject (bars 65-76) and closing statement (bars 77-85) of the recapitulation change little, only a 4th lower in harmonies.

MOVEMENT THREE – PRESTO

The third movement is rapid and lighter in substance than the first movement but is still complicated in structure. The main subject (bars 1-32) comes in two sentences and it is the first time we see Beethoven develop a main theme by playing a variation of it. He approaches the main subject in later sonatas as well, such as the “Waldstein” and “Appasionata” but with far more invention. In this sonata, he changes the melody little and uses the Alberti base yet again, but the changed material still does its job to heighten the angst. But Beethoven does use some interesting harmonies. The very first bar of the main theme starts out in F but then mutates back to Fm and he makes use of the C9 (V9) harmony. It sounds like Gdim in the first sentence but later in the second sentence the Alberti base gives you context, letting you hear its true design.

The exposition; the main subject is also the transition, easily landing to the subordinate subjects. The first subordinate subject (bars 33-44) is in Eb7 and ends in a IV-I cadence, which is interesting because most composers would land on Ab instead. While Beethoven does land a 5th higher on Eb he makes it Eb7 and uses Ab to create a IV-I effect, suggesting he may move to Ab. The second subordinate subject (bars 45-59) makes the Eb7-Ab harmonies more obvious by using loud octaves in the base and arpeggios in the treble. The closing statements (bars 60-74) are also odd; he spends some time in Ab7 and Db, but finally lands on Ab. Beethoven delays modulation to the “proper” key.

The development and retransition fused together (bars 75-84) is extremely short. It’s even shorter than the main subject, and it does disappoint me a little as Beethoven could have at least played it again as a variation. Either way, Beethoven mutates the home key of Fm to F while developing the material a bit; he uses new keys like Gb (the Neopolitan or IIb) and Bbm (iv). He does develop the melodic arc as well by making it rise higher and more often. He dips the melody down a bit before rising it; he raises it Gb, then to Db, and landing it on C just a m2nd away.

The recapitulation; the first subordinate subject (bars 85-101) is a little more complex, dividing amongst the Fm-C7 harmonies, and uses the chromatic base of Bh to make a leading tone of Edim9 lead to Fm, but then makes an imperfect cadence in C to keep the tension high. The second subordinate subject (bars 97-112) is much simpler, arpeggios in C7 and Fm. The closing section (bars 112-126) has little change, just dropped by a m3rd to put the key in Fm. The very last notes are important though, as Beethoven throws all parts down to the lowest register to create a downward, tragic finale. He later replicates this ending in the Op. 2 and “Appasionata” Fm sonatas but to greater effect. Even now Beethoven seems aware the very lowest note on the pianoforte is an F note (the lowest note on the modern piano is an A note). It possibly represents a darkest, lowest point in music, in feeling and literally in tone with the pianoforte. Beethoven doesn’t find lower points in feeling or transcend them until his last piano sonatas.

We first see Beethoven writing piano sonatas in 1783, not the wild man we turned into a titan genius through myth but a mere boy of twelve. By this time Beethoven’s father Johan could no longer teach his son through his brutal methods so he turned his son over to more able tutors such as Christian Neefe, who introduced the young Beethoven to Johan Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The boy learned quickly, practicing on the piano long past midnight for many nights to refine his skills, soon mastering J.S. Bach’s works.

Beethoven occupied himself with other tasks and hobbies. He played the organ in his church and the viola in the court orchestras of the prince electors ruling Bonn at the time. – The nation of Germany did not yet exist; the land was part of the Holy Roman Empire, broken into many small territories each ruled by a different prince. – In his spare time, Beethoven frequented the local university lectures, salons, and other forums, and quickly became enchanted by the principles of the Enlightenment, ideals he held until his final days.

The young Beethoven composed his first three piano sonatas in this climate, dedicating them to his Prince Elector Maximillian Frederick as per custom. The pianist Ronald Brautigam describes, in his booklet that comes with his recordings of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, that Beethoven drew heavily on Carl Phillip Bach’s “sensitive style” keyboard works and Haydn’s “storm and stress” piano sonatas. He then mentions how Beethoven was lucky his father was too drunk to discipline his son to compose in a so-called proper style; had Mozart tried to write such music his father would have stopped him.

I am listening to C.P.E Bach’s keyboard works as I write this very essay and I do hear some of the same muses who stirred Beethoven when he was only a teenager and would inspire him for the rest of his life. The music is indeed in a “sensitive style”, with touching melodies one moment and stormy, abrupt chords in another, elements Beethoven puts in his own sonatas. I hear adolescent melancholy, youthful play, ventures in playing dark and difficult music, and some sight into the abstract realms music takes you when you really listen to it.

Let us now study the first of these earliest sonatas. I created a road map, posted just below this paragraph, and a YouTube video with the entire sonata in annotations, link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tWsQlPM1rg.

MOVEMENT ONE – ALLEGRO CANTABILE

The first movement, unlike Beethoven’s later sonatas, does not have any clear first subject, second subject, and so forth. It is like Mozart’s earlier sonatas and Classical ideals in general; you hear one gracious melodic line, then another, a new idea develops, all in balance and harmony. You can really think of movement one’s sonata form as a few melodies in Eb, then a few melodies in Bb, and so on.

Beethoven thinks along these lines of balance and harmony, his ideas mostly abstract, not trying to state any definite idea. He does explore a simple contrast between a high delicate woodwind range, a warm middle string range, and low stormy range. He does put more thought in his later “Kurfursten” sonatas on what he wants to say and how to say it; in the Fm sonata he explores loftier thoughts, but he is not used to writing in sonata form at the moment. Give the kid a break. He should do better things anyway, like try to get rid of his pimples, go to Hot Topic, and flirt with girls.

Beethoven’s “main subject” is made of a few melodies with little relation, but they do connect in the same way a few sentences create a paragraph; the paragraph being the “first subject”. The boy does put some color and contrast between sentences; sentence one has a rising then falling arc and implies a string ensemble (bars 1-4), another sentence leaps then falls in a woodwind’s register (bars 11-14).

When he modulates he plays many sixteenth notes to amp up the tension. Beethoven is technically in Bb already but he wants to establish a Bb harmony by modulating, so he does so as if he was in Eb in two sentences. In his first sentence he starts his first phrase in Bb, the second phrase in C (bars 15-18). He changes the harmony by moving it up a whole step, a technique Beethoven is fond of. The whole point of his exercise is to move to F, the V chord (or dominant) of Bb. By using the F harmony, Beethoven “overshoots” so he can play a V-I cadence of F-Bb.

The “subordinate subject” (bars 25-30) is very short and also counts as a closing statement, but what a striking and playful tune it is! Beethoven plays it twice, once as a flute, another as a violin. He brings back a similar contrast as before in his “first subject” but the order is reversed (woodwinds first, strings second). Beethoven does develop a few simple ideas; a contrast between high and low keys, and he develops it further.

We can break down the development into two “cores” where Beethoven explores an idea in the exposition. The first “core” . (bars 30-40). imitates the second idea but in Cm, among the highest keys. Nothing too new here. The second “core“ (bars 48-55) is made of arpeggios in minor chords, mostly Cm, the register low, dark, stormy. He retransitions to the “main subject” easily by playing Bb then Eb.

I can only comment little on the recapitulation since everything is the same as before, just a 5th lower, in Eb. The only difference is the “main theme” is truncated, so we only hear one sentence. For a while I wondered by Beethoven played a sentence in Bb so soon (bars 11-14) but I may have a clue now. Beethoven may have seen how the line in the recap is in Eb exactly repeats the line in the expo, so he may have changed the latter to Bb to avoid repeating himself and create a bigger feeling of returning home as the movement closes.

MOVEMENT TWO – ANDANTE CANTABILE

Beethoven shows his true talent and craft in this movement. Like in many sonatas, including the Fm sonata, the middle movement is the heart of the sonata, the highest seat of thought and feeling and a fulcrum between the two fast movements. Beethoven uses this form in many later sonatas throughout his career but he takes it to a much higher level. A good slow movement can change the nature of the entire sonata, such a crucible seems to transform the music as you go from the first movement to the last movement. As a composer myself, I find slow movements hardest to write but when I do it somehow helps me write later fast movements far better.

In the second movement we can really see Beethoven express the sensitive style he picked up from C.P.E. Bach as he sings his lonesome and tender song. The constant mood is of adolescent melancholy; you truly understand how sad and lonely this boy was, with no intimate friends, with only a few sensitive adult women to comfort and protect him. Already we see the young Beethoven improving as a composer in learning what emotions to express and what techniques he needs to do so.

Beethoven sets this mood by cleverly using chromatic notes in the treble and base and in the way he uses his sentences; he makes them “two-bodied” where the first phrase or clause, if you can call it that, is simpler and the second one is more complicated and intense. You tend to hear this in the second part (of B part) of the exposition and recapitulation. However, his base is somewhat staid, as he plays Alberti base for almost the entire movement. He lets the melody do most of the work and, like in a lot of early classical music, the base is used for harmonic filler.

In the main subject and very short transition (bars 1-13), Beethoven makes both Bb and Eb natural. This adds color, yes, but also suggests the key of C, which is the V chord of F, the dominant. He plays a chromatic rising base as he transitions, up from Bb, to B, to C. This way he plays an inverted F chord, making the cadence imperfect, keeping suspense kind of like how a novelist refuses to resolve the plot of a story just yet. The harmonies he implies throughout are Bb, F, C, F (IV-V-V/V-V), again he “overshoots” by playing a C-F cadence, which is V-I relative to the key of F.

Beethoven writes two subordinates subjects in F. The first subject (bars 14-19), is in the tenor and base registers. Beethoven suggests a viola and cello, the warm tones contrast high notes in the rest of the piece. It is a shame Beethoven doesn’t use more contrast. He again plays a chromatic rising base, this time suggesting Bb-F (IV-I) harmonies, and again keeps us in suspense with an imperfect cadence.

The second subject (bars 19-25) is more straightforward. The harmony is “offbeat here”, starting as V-I not I-V, and Beethoven plays a string of 32nd notes in fortissimo afterward to intensify the emotion. He also plays an F# note, implying Gm to make the harmony more ambiguous. Beethoven is very fond of the F# and Bh chromatic notes in the second and third movement of this sonata. And finally, he plays a perfect cadence at the end, resolving the tension he set up earlier and leading us to a poignant closing statement (bars 26-31).

The development section (bars 31-37) is very short but Beethoven makes good use of it by playing many chromatic notes; these include F#, G#, Eb, and C#. While Beethoven technically plays F-C7 (I-V) the whole time the chromatic notes imply other harmonies like Am, Cm, and Dm. In the very brief retransition he plays the Bb note at the end to imply a subdominant harmony (relative to the key of F) to return to the home key of Bb.

The recapitulation, like in the last movement, repeats the exposition almost verbatim, most of the material is transposed a 4th higher. The main subject (bars 38-42) is shortened so much it merges with the transition to make one sentence. The second subordinate subject (bars 49-56) has an extra bar but it is important. Beethoven uses it to play an Ab note; at the moment it suggests a Bb7 chord but in the entire subject it creates a strong subdominant feel. Most composers at the time dwelled in the IV chord in their recapitulations to anchor your sense of hearing back to the home key and usually to play a IV-V-I harmony. Beethoven does something similar here.

MOVEMENT THREE – RONDO, VIVACE

Beethoven changes form in this movement; now he opts for a rondo form not the usual sonata form, but it does sound a lot like a sonata. Its three main stanzas of A,B,C each resemble an exposition, development, and recapitulation, and each stanza is made of four lines of a,b,c,d. Like the first movement, this last movement is made of a string of different melodies that have little relation to each other but the emotions expressed are more intense. The major lines are more zesty and playful, the minor ones more brooding, the cadenzas otherworldly.

In stanza A, line a (bars 1-8) is a theme in Eb in the standard I-V-I harmony. Line b (bars 9-16) acts like a transition of sorts; Beethoven plays a arpeggios throughout to fill out harmonies, he toys with a chromatic rising base a bit to create Ebaug harmony, and later modulates by playing Bb-Cm7-F-Bb. Line c, the “subordinate subject” (bars 17-23), Beethoven plays arpeggios again, just with the hands reversed, plays Bb and Eb to create a I-IV-I feeling, as if he didn’t modulate to Bb at all. Beethoven ends the line by playing Edim7 then holding out on F a bit. This is a diminished cadence where the composer plays viidim7-I rather than the usual V-I (relative to F in this case). It adds some spice to the music and lets the composer travel to a distant key easily without having to worry about a V-I cadence. It becomes clear to us at this point this piece focuses more on harmonies than having distinct melodies, a contrast to the first two movements, especially the second movement.

His closing statement is in two sentences (bars 18-36). Beethoven must get back all the way from F (which is a whole step above Eb, notice how this parallels the first movement) to Eb. He does this by going down the harmonies by 4ths, from F to Bb to Eb. Once there, he goes briefly to Cm before going to Bb (playing I-V-I) where he suspends us in a Bb chord. We are now in the end of stanza A, the suspending chord acts as a cadenza, which many pianists fail to improvise as they lack invention.

Stanza B begins. Line a (bars 37-44) is our familiar first tune. Now in line b (bars 38-55), we enter the first “core” of a “development” section. Here Beethoven explores the arpeggios from before but this time he cycles through a bunch of flat harmonies close to Eb; these are Ab, Fm, Bb, Gm, Cm, Bb7, and F7. The second “core” in line c (bars 56-62), he plays a Ebdim7-F cadence so he can hold on to F a bit. Then in line c, the “retransition”, (bars 63-71) he hangs around Ebmin (the minor version of the home key) before arriving to a second cadenza in Bb.

Stanza C mimics a recapitulation but Beethoven is more inventive here than in the last two movements. Before he played the exact same material just a 4th below in harmony. Now he does a few new things. We hear the first tune again (bars 72-79) as a “main subject”, barely any different than before. In line b, the “transition” (bars 80-87), he moves to Cm. He returns to using diminished cadences, this time twice; first with Bdim7-Cm, then with F#dim7-G. In line c, the “subordinate subject” (bars 88-99), is in Eb with the standard V-I, spiced up a bit with Ab (the subdominant) and another diminished cadence from F#dim7-Gm. Next Beethoven hangs around Cm, playing V-I with some Fm in it. This Cm sentence thus mirrors the Eb sentence before.

We enter the final cadenza, the notes held out in a single voice on the C note. Then we enter line d, the “closing section” (lines 100-109), where the main tune repeats again with a small extra flourish at the end to finish the movement. The main Eb theme changes very little throughout the entire movement, which shows how the young Beethoven is still pretty new to sonata form. The mature Beethoven would never repeat himself like that, a good counterexample being his “Rage Over a Lost Penny” rondo. He transforms the theme in so many ways; he changes its register, plays it in a remote key, diminishes it, embellishes it, shortens it, develops bits of it elsewhere in the piece, makes at least two variations out of it, uses it build a coda, and so on, all in five and a half minutes. However, the young Beethoven’s genius is emerging, even now he is getting the knack of writing complex and passionate music.